Crowdfunding now: e-cargo bikes, and ensuring global access to digital education

Pioneering EdTech charity Global Teacher launches its first crowdfunding campaign

Access to digital education in the developing world is difficult: 31% of the global population do not have 3G coverage and 13% having no electricity. This means around a billion people worldwide have no internet or electricity. One of the ramifications of this situation is that nearly 15% of the world’s adults population are illiterate (World Bank, 2022). Global Teacher is aiming to change this, and is now crowdfunding to facilitate their mission.

Without electricity or access to the internet, students in developing countries often rely on donated textbooks for their education. Whilst a great starting point, out-of-date and culturally inappropriate donated textbooks cannot compete with leading digital educational content that is available, but currently inaccessible to schools in off-grid, offline environments.

The charity has therefore designed and manufactured the world’s first 3D-printed, solar-powered educational learning system which aims to put world-class educational content in the heart of marginalised classrooms without the need for mains electricity or access to the internet.

Each ‘Pod’ pack comes fully equipped for teachers without internet or electricity to enable them to deliver world-class education to their students. The eco-friendly solar powered battery pack can power the projector for up to 6 hours, enough for a full day of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, ‘Lumi’, is their bespoke learning software, designed to give teachers and students all over the world access to current, relevant and appropriate learning material.

Global Teacher is now ready to send Pods into the field on their first international trials. They’ve partnered with the Breteau Foundation to send Pods to Mexico, Lebanon, and Ukraine to bring vital educational resources to refugee camps and marginalised communities. Through these 3-month trial deployments, they hope to better understand how Pod performs in the field so that they can set about our mission to educate one million marginalised students by 2030.

One of the Sunderland-based charity’s guiding principles is collaboration. They comment further: ‘[C]ommunity and collaboration is in our DNA. Which is why it felt natural to launch our first ever crowdfunding campaign to mark this significant milestone of our very first international trials.’

EAV ecargo bikes announce next phase of crowd funding, in partnership with seedrs

The electric eCargo bike company has performed well since the company’s launch in 2018, even accounting for hardships including the pandemic. Partnering with Seedrs, who aim to make crowdfunding easy and efficient, the public is now able to support EAV and become part of the business as it grows.

The leading eCargo bike company plans to raise a minimum of £750K from Seedrs, with the balance coming from current shareholders, institutional investors, family offices and other high net worth investors.

From as little as £20, individual investors can now become part of EAV’s family, which started out as just 3 and is now over 60 team members strong.  Investment will support the company as it tackles emissions in our cities – which are already deemed a major medical threat to city dwellers and beyond – and inspire leading companies in all industries to make the swap from diesel vans to emissions-free EAVs.

This latest crowdfunding comes at a time when climate change is even more important, following a recent IEA report that highlighted that the transport sector (which contributed 406.00 KtC02 in 2020-1) is the leading greenhouse gas sector, producing three times more emissions than the industrial sector.

“Seedrs were a part of our journey when we first established EAV, so it seemed fitting that we would use them to support the next phase in our journey.” said Adam Barmby, Founder and CEO of EAV.  “More than that, we really believe in EAV, our products, vision and our team, and we believe others will too; so we’re giving them a unique opportunity to be a part of something truly special – something that will continue to change the urban transport environment and tackle climate change head on”.